The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987)

August 22, 1987

Film: Anthony Newley In 'Garbage Pail Kids'

By CARYN JAMES

Published: August 22, 1987

LEAD: Where is Miss Manners when you need her? If only she'd been there to break up the big fight scene, when some vile children go on a rampage - one clears the room with nearly fatal flatulence, another vomits on her enemies.

Where is Miss Manners when you need her? If only she'd been there to break up the big fight scene, when some vile children go on a rampage - one clears the room with nearly fatal flatulence, another vomits on her enemies.

These dirty fighters are the heroes of ''The Garbage Pail Kids Movie,'' an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the bubble gum cards and stickers featuring the Garbage Pail Kids characters - dozens of them, all with extreme attitude problems.

As Captain Manzini, Anthony Newley owns a mysterious antique shop, where a 14-year-old boy named Dodger works. Dodger is infatuated with Tangerine, who is beautiful and at least old enough to drive. Her jealous boyfriend, Juice, scuffles with Dodger in the antique shop, where they overturn a garbage can full of green slime.

The next thing Dodger knows he's surrounded by seven repugnant little humans like Messy Tessie, whose nose is constantly running down her face, onto her fingers and on anyone else who happens to be nearby. Her pal, Valerie Vomit, saves her special skills for the grand finale fight scene, but Windy Winston makes a big entrance; he jolts Dodger to consciousness by turning his back and directing some foul air in the poor boy's face. Ali Gator is half-boy, half-alligator, which at least gives him half an excuse for his bad behavior.

The kids help Dodger win Tangerine's friendship, and the ostensible point is that beauty is only skin deep. I prefer Keats's ''truth is beauty,'' so let's be honest: ''The Garbage Pail Kids Movie'' is gross-out humor for children, cynically packaged with goody-goody morals that wouldn't convince the most naive parent or child.

Mr. Newley might as well be winking at the audience when he says, ''We cannot choose the way we look, but we can choose the way we behave,'' because no one questions these kids' behavior. We're not shown incurable illness or even terminal ugliness here. Messy Tessie does not need sympathy; she needs a handkerchief. Get Windy Winston to a good gastroenterologist, but don't tell me he's shunned because he's funny looking.

None of this humor has even the repulsive gusto of John Belushi gorging himself in ''Animal House.'' Antisocial body language is the film's real point, but it's snuck in, the way a small child might blurt out a bad word and giggle.

The production is truly beyond help. The kids are portrayed by 3- and 4-foot-tall adults wearing puppetlike heads that make for expressionless faces. When the kids run off to a movie theater the scene looks as if it was shot in someone's basement; when they land in the State Home for the Ugly (now there's a satirical idea gone to waste), it looks like an abandoned warehouse. ''The Garbage Pail Kids Movie'' is enough to make you believe in strict and faraway boarding schools.

''The Garbage Pail Kids'' is rated PG, but it may be too repulsive for children or adults of any age. The Cast GARBAGE PAIL KIDS, written by Melinda Palmer and Rod Amateau; directed and produced by Mr. Amateau; director of photography, Harvey Genkins; released by Atlantic Releasing Corporation. At East Side Cinema, Third Ave. at 53d St.; Cinema 42, Seventh Ave. at 47th St.; Movie Center 5, 235 W. 125th St. Running time: 100 minutes. This film is rated PG. Captain ManziniAnthony Newley DodgerMackenzie Astin TangerineKatie Barberi